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Uttar Pradesh and Lok Sabha polls 2014

Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in the country. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, UP will have polls in 6 phases, starting from April 10 and ending on May 12. The state has 80 Lok Sabha seats the largest in the country out of which 17 are reserved for candidates belonging to scheduled caste.

The total number of electorates in Uttar Pradesh is 134,351,297 of which 73,613,039 are male voters and 60,731,628 are female voters.

Since Uttar Pradesh has the largest number of members in the Lok Sabha, the election results from UP often decides the fate of the government at the centre.
Opinion poll conducted by CNN-IBN 7 gives BJP 41 to 49 seats, Congress 11 to 15 seats, Bahujan Samaj Party 10 to 16 seats, Samajwadi Party 8 to 14 seats and 2 to 6 seats to 'Others.'

The CNN-IBN 7 India TV survey gives 31 seats to the BJP, 25 seats to the Samajwadi Party, 17 seats to the BSP, 5 seats to the Congress and 2 to the RLD.

The Pollsters have predicted the BJP to be the top vote puller in Uttar Pradesh. Two reasons are cited for this; disillusionment with the Akhilesh Yadav government, and upper caste reconsolidation around the BJP.

Pollsters are predicting 27 per cent of the vote for the BJP. It is an increase from 18 per cent to 27 per cent, a leap of nine percent points. If we go by the 2009 Lok Sabha election results, this prediction is bit farfetched.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) vote share was 23 per cent. The Congress polled 18 per cent of the votes. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vote share table was 28 per cent. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vote share was 18 per cent.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, both Congress and BJP got 18 per cent votes but the BJP got 10 seats while the Congress walked away with 21 seats, emerging second only to SP that got 23 seats. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got 28 per cent votes but bagged only 20 seats.

So there is lot of uncertainty in store in UP lok sabha elections. Even though the pollsters have given the upper castes preference towards the BJP, they have not cited any reasons for the OBC and Dalit votes to swing towards BJP.

The consolidation of some section of the votes in favor of BJP, necessarily do not mean the fragmentation of other section of the voters.

If the upper caste votes of the SP and BSP may migrate to the BJP, it is not necessary that the dalits and OBC votes may stick to the BJP. So it seems the opinion polls in U.P. tend to show some bias in favour of the BJP.

There is a probable scenario where the migration of Dalit and OBC voters from the BJP, SP camps may take place to the BSP camp with the crucial Muslim vote bank too switching over to the BSP. In such case there can be a direct fight between the upper castes supporting the BJP and the rest supporting the BSP. No guesses for the winner.

However, knowing that in U.P, nothing could be predicated till the ballot is cast; victory for the BJP is the handiwork of the party's propaganda machinery. The actual out will depend upon how the rest of the players play their cards against the BJP.